February 11, 2005

Saying suffering has a "precious" value, Pope John Paul II urged hundreds of sick people to keep him and the whole church in their prayers.

The pope sent a message Feb. 11 -- the day after he was released from the hospital -- to Italian patients, their family members and caregivers marking the World Day of the Sick in St. Peter's Basilica.

As a Buckley fan since the early 70's, and as one for whom the connection between Catholicism and conservatism was made by WFB, i was vaguely worried by the tone, that went far beyond the elegiac, in his Atlantic Monthly meditation/essay on giving up his sailboat. It sounded too much like someone working hard at not sounding depressed.

Since this column on the Pope's example, i fear even more that some level of Roman stoicism as opposed to Roman Catholicism has infected his thought, with the solemn respect for "a honorable death" even if you have to arrange it yourself a part of such Romanitas (sorry, i don't know how to italicize that).